The Best Episodes of Riverdale 

After countless milkshakes and murders, “Riverdale” will kick off its seventh and final season on March 31.

A subversive take on the Archie Comics that follows Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Jughead (Cole Sprouse) as they navigate their lives in the “Murder Capital of the World,” “Riverdale” is perhaps most famous for its increasingly chaotic plotlines. As one friend once described to me, “the first season was perfect…after that, it was just bad.”

Over the years, Cheryl (Madelaine Petsch) joined no less than 3 cults, Betty was chased by her serial killer dad at prom and Archie failed the SATs after getting mauled by a bear. Being a teenager is hard!

In anticipation of the last chapter in this crazy world, it’s time to review the epic highs and lows of this insanely epic (and chaotic) show.  

1. “Chapter One: The River’s Edge” (Season 1, Episode 1) 

The pilot of “Riverdale” encapsulates everything the show was originally about: an intriguing murder mystery, a fascinating love triangle and a very moody Cole Sprouse narrating the whole thing. Riverdale, the so-called “town of pep,” is on the edge after the murder of Jason Blossom, heir apparent to the Blossom Maple Syrup empire. Who did it? Why did they do it? And most importantly, how did Archie and his friends get mixed up in it? Veronica and Archie’s kiss at Cheryl’s party would set up the Betty-Veronica-Archie triangle that has lasted the entire show; it needs to be resolved before the show ends so we can finally figure out which couple was the true “endgame.”  

2. “Chapter Thirteen: The Sweet Hereafter” (Season 1, Episode 13) 

If only this episode hadn’t ended with a cliffhanger, then perhaps the first season could’ve stood on its own. After wrapping up Jason Blossom’s murder mystery in the previous episode, Archie and Co. must save Cheryl after she falls into the same river her brother nearly drowned in (fun fact: actor KJ Apa, who plays Archie, really did break his hand punching through fake ice). Everything in this episode is perfect, from Archie’s cringe-y guitar ballad to Cheryl burning Blossom manor with a candelabra….and then Archie’s perfect dad Fred (the late, great Luke Perry) gets shot in Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe by the Black Hood. What a way to end the first season of a show that would only become more insane. 

3. “Chapter Forty: The Great Escape” (Season 3, Episode 5) 

After being framed for murder at the end of season 2 by Veronica’s dad, Hiram Lodge (a perfect Mark Consuelos), Archie gets sent to juvie and spends the first part of his junior year waxing poetic about “the epic highs and lows of high school football” to fellow prisoners. Realizing that Archie needs to get out there, fast, while he’s still alive, Veronica plans a prison break where Archie will escape during an illegal underground boxing match. Though the plan faces near doom when Hiram finds out his daughter is breaking her boyfriend out of jail, Archie escapes and has a very sweet reunion with his best friend Jughead, who was too busy playing Gryphons and Gargoyles (think Dungeons and Dragons, but deadly) to help him break out of jail. What a show.  

4. “Chapter Sixty: Dog Day Afternoon” (Season 4, Episode 3) 

Casting CW staple Chad Michael Murray as Edgar Evernever, leader of an organ-harvesting cult known as The Farm, was a genius move, and the cult finally sees its demise in this episode after Betty’s mom shoots Edgar just as he’s about to take off in a rocket (I wish I were making this stuff up). In other news, Archie hosts a shirtless car wash, Veronica changes her last name to Luna and Jughead and Betty get sent a very ominous VHS tape. Perhaps the most intriguing mystery of the entire series is how Jughead and Betty even know what a VHS tape is.   

5. “Chapter Eighty: Purgatorio” (Season 5, Episode 4)

After COVID delayed the last few episodes of season 4 of “Riverdale,” we finally got the seven-year time jump we’ve all been waiting for. What has the gang been up to? Archie fought in “the war” (which war was never specified), Betty joined the FBI and chased the Trash Bag Killer, Veronica married a dude named Chadwick, and Jughead grew terrible facial hair. This episode sees the gang reuniting to save their beloved Riverdale, which is facing a hasty demise after Hiram Lodge becomes Mayor and dissolves the town. The best part of this episode is Archie’s dream where he fights a war on the Riverdale football field. We are so lucky this show exists.  

6. “Chapter One Hundred and One: Unbelievable” (Season 6, Episode 6) 

By season 6, “Riverdale” had become, as this episode title suggests, quite “unbelievable.” After spending the first five episodes in an alternate universe known as Rivervale that had two different Jugheads, we go back to the “prime timeline” where we pick up in the aftermath of an explosion at Archie’s house (Hiram had left a bomb under his bed…which Archie was on top of…with Betty… when it exploded). Rather than being blown into a million little bits, though, Archie and Betty instead get magical powers–he’s “invulnerable”; she sees evil auras. Their conversation describing their newfound abilities to each other has some of the most hilariously cringeworthy dialogue of the entire show (“Um, I can see people’s energy”). But defying perhaps all expectations, “Riverdale” would somehow manage to get even more chaotic–by the midpoint of the season, Veronica would begin to emit poison from her lips and sing Britney Spears’ “Toxic” to describe her newfound “spider” power. Remember when this show was about a murder mystery?  

6. “Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen: Night of the Comet” (Season 6, Episode 22) 

The season 6 finale went out with a bang, literally. After Big Bad of the season Percival Pickens sent a comet towards Riverdale to demolish the town, Archie and Co. had to combine their magical powers together and give them to Cheryl so she could destroy said comet while singing “The End of the World” by Billie Eilish. This sends them back to the 1950s as highschoolers (even though by this point, almost all of the actors are in their 30s); of course, the only one who remembers their previous lives is Jughead, who seems to be at home on his typewriter staring eerily into the camera as the episode closes. Over the years, “Riverdale” has evolved from the Town of Pep to the Murder Capital of the World to the most Chaotic Place on the Planet. Whatever the seventh season may bring, one thing is for sure: “Riverdale” isn’t just a TV show, it’s art.